In describing my church, you also describe Slashdot.
Really? I've been reading and posting to slashdot a long time and there is almost nothing that readers here agree on much less consider dogma. Some are libertarian and others aren't and they have a healthy active debate about which is right. Some like Apple and other do not. Some like bitcoin and others think it is nonsense. When people on slashdot see a "Crazy Ms Doddard" they point it out with enthusiasm. Honestly I cannot think of many places that are less like a congregation that sits quietly trying to avoid conflict. The ENTIRE point and value of slashdot is that people here question virtually everything and argue loudly about it.
Find me a mainstream church where there are ongoing debates like the ones here about the correctness of virtually every topic and I'll concede the point.
I think it's more along the lines of the "watchmaker God," who set up all the mechanisms to produce the results he wanted, then set them in motion and sat back and watched.
A distinction without any real difference. Such an argument presumes the existence of a deity when in fact there is no actual reason to presume such an entity actually is responsible. They are exploiting a gap in our scientific knowledge to claim that a god is responsible for the universe. Over time science has pushed back the boundaries of our knowledge but the churches continue to insist that a supernatural being must be involved somehow in spite of there being no actual evidence to support their position. The church has to varying degrees and at various times actively fought a losing battle against scientific progress when it demonstrated church doctrine/dogma to be false. Periodically they acquiesce to logic and facts and declare that their god must be responsible for the bits we don't understand just yet or that god must have set things up. You don't need to get into a semantic argument to realize the logic is identical to god of the gaps.
Can you explain why God creating the mechanism of evolution (as opposed to the development of certain features and/or species) is a riff on the God of the gaps, in which it is posited that the cause for anything we can't yet explain is God's will?
It's just the most fundamental god of the gaps argument. Basically any time we don't understand something and then invoke a deity to explain it we are involving the same logic as a god of the gaps argument. It is an attempt to posit that god (in whatever form) exists and/or is responsible for something based on current gaps in our knowledge. No, we don't know how the universe was created but it doesn't automatically follow that a deity is responsible.
Miracles aren't magic, they are occurrences with incredibly low probabilities
A miracle by definition is an event that cannot be explained by natural or scientific laws. In other words an actual Act of God. It is used colloquially for unlikely events but that is not what a miracle actually is defined as.
The bible doesn't contradict science, although many religious people unfortunately do.
Really? People really did turn into pillars of salt? People can actually die for several days and then be reborn? Virgin's can actually give birth?
...the Catholic Church itself has not had a conflict with scientific theory for some time now.
Really? That is not consistent with the evidence as far as I can tell. They've made concessions over time (see god of the gaps) but they still insist that their ethical stance should determine the course of scientific inquiry. The most prominent examples (though hardly the only ones) are in reproductive biology. The church officially opposes the use of embryonic stem cells. Church leaders advocate public health policies (like abstinence) that demonstrably do not work in spite of copious scientific evidence showing that they do not work. In 2009 the pope actually stated that condom use would make the AIDS crisis worse. The church rejects all use of contraception technology in spite of demonstrable benefits supported by scientific evidence.
Not because anyone disagrees with him, but because they all are thinking the same thing: "Oh, deal Lord, he's going to get crazy old Mrs. Doddard stated again on fossils again. How can I get out of here politely?"
Which means you are de-facto agreeing with "crazy old Mrs. Doddard" because you are remaining silent and accepting her viewpoint. I understand not wanting to get involved with an argument with a crazy person but quietly allowing her viewpoint to remain dogma because confrontation makes you uncomfortable is rather pathetic. Crazy Mrs. Doddard is permitted to inflict her nonsense on everyone else because it is allowed.
Modern churches, even here in the deep south are pretty diverse places, and the general policy seems to be "if you think this is going to start an argument, and is not vitally important, don't talk about it."
The technical term for that is groupthink. You are allowing irrational viewpoints without dissension because conflict makes you uncomfortable. Which makes me wonder why you bother going. Why would you repeatedly sit and listen to a bunch of stuff you claim you do not genuinely believe? The church is clearly claiming to tell you the "Truth". If you don't agree with it or if the available evidence doesn't support the claims, why would you repeatedly subject yourself to something you believe to be wrong?
Oh and I disagree that churches are particularly diverse places. Churches tend to be populated by very like minded people engaged in best example of groupthink I've ever seen.
I don't want ApplePay to win. That basically makes 1 Vendor control of the way we pay for things.
You mean except for cash, credit cards, debit cards, Google wallet, gift cards, money orders, checks, and even f***ing bitcoin? You mean except for the 3-4 companies that control most credit card activity already (Visa/MC, Amex, Discover, + a few others)?
Most people don't have a phone from Apple and that isn't likely to change anytime soon. I think you can relax...
At least with CurrentC it is a group of retailers all having to agree on a standard.
This "standard" might reasonably be an attempt at collusion given that it has lots of benefits to retailers and none to customers. Using an alternative "standard" whose sole purpose is to screw customers out of money, just because it isn't Apple is pretty dumb.
...so merchants still have to pay swipe fees to the bastards at Visa, MasterCard, et. al.
Technically true but the party that really is paying is you - the consumer. The swipe fees are baked into the price charged by the retailers so they are simply passing on the cost of the swipe fees. Any retailer who claims that swipe fees are costing them a penny is either A) selling their goods below cost or B) being disingenuous about who is actually paying the credit card companies.
With a few very minor exceptions most merchants only should care about credit card swipe fees if they can somehow lower then to an amount cheaper than their competition pays. If two retailers are charged the same 4% markup on the credit card swipe then it doesn't matter at all because they gain no advantage and they pass on basically all of the cost to the customer. In technical terms the payment incidence is almost always on the customer.
You understand why you get cash back though right? You get cash back because Visa/MC are charging so much extra they can afford kickbacks to the user.
I pay the markup either way. The merchant doesn't (usually) give me a discount if I don't use a credit card and all the fees are baked into the prices of the products.
If anything, I would expect more lucrative rewards programs because they're cutting out that middleman entirely.
No they aren't. They are just changing who the middle man is and saving money for themselves by cutting out things like convenience, security and liability. This payment service provides me all the problems of a debit card with less convenience, less security and less protection from fraud as far as I can tell. Why would I use this instead of a debit card much less instead of Apple Pay or Google's equivalent?
And every customer is pissed of in a major way, because both Apple Pay and Google Wallet actually _worked_ until these idiots shut it off.
Pissed might be too strong a word but I have a Walgreens right down the street from the CVS and Rite-Aid. Only one supports Apple Pay so guess which one I'm going to use if I want to use Apple Pay? (or Google's alternatives) I'm certainly not going to do business with someone who makes my life less convenient. This CurrentC "solution" is all benefit to the merchant and none to me. I can't see a single redeeming benefit to me. Less convenient, more risk and seemingly limited liability protection? No thanks.
Apple has some pretty convincing material out describing how Apple Pay works, that can convince the geeks that it is actually safe. Google probably has the same thing, would be nice if someone could post a link. But these jokers? I wouldn't trust them in a million years.
Dead on. Retailers have clearly shown they cannot be trusted to keep customer data secure. It's bad enough with a credit card. There is no way in hell I'm giving any major retailer direct (ACH) access to my bank account. They must be doing some heavy drugs if they think I am dumb enough to do that.
The retailers can build CurrentC but they can't force customers to use it. The payment process sounds terrible; it'll be easier to just pull out your credit card and pay with that.
Agreed. It's like using a debit card but more cumbersome and with less legal protection. All the benefits are for the merchant and none for the consumer.
So let me get this straight. They have a solution that is harder to use, less secure, and requires me to give direct access to my bank account? Why is this any better than using a debit card? They're delusional if they think this is a good solution.
The retailers have joined together to create a platform that is independent of the credit card companies and their profit-robbing transaction fees.
Credit card transaction fees get passed on to customers. They generally do not eat that cost. The incidence of payment is entirely on the end customer. This argument is bogus. I don't mind them saving me as the end customer money but it isn't their pocket it comes out of.
However, the argument that when you're out in public you don't deserve any privacy needs to die. The law in most places may not have kept up with technology and its implications
It's not that you have no privacy in public but rather that your expectations of privacy are (and should be) rather limited. You might be noticed or you might not be but you should have no objective legal expectation that your actions will go unnoticed by anyone. As a general practical matter is is basically impossible to provide you with the sort of privacy you might expect in your home when out in public. There are legitimate public safety concerns as well as practical considerations. Are we supposed to avert our eyes because you walked by so that you can pretend you went unnoticed?
When someone spies on me electronically, that spy doesn't actually know whether I'm in public or not.
Explain how the airport does not know you are in public when you are standing in a security line and broadcasting a radio signal.
Airports have lots of rooms where I could be that are not public.
You are confusing seclusion with the legal concept of privacy. They are not the same thing. The airport is not private property owned by you. Generally speaking you have no objective expectation of privacy anywhere on the airport grounds so long as your Fourth Amendment rights to unreasonable search and seizure are not violated. It does not matter if you are alone in a room or standing in a public area.
I can't see any justification why the fact that people can see me would mean that people can electronically spy on me.
Nobody is spying on you. You are BROADCASTING your presence. Get a clue. If it bothers you then turn your radio off and it won't be a problem for you.
No, the privacy implications of this are downright creepy. Because the most unsettling thing is governments and corporations feel they have a right to this information.
If you are in an airport your are IN PUBLIC. Your privacy rights are significantly reduced when you are in public. You have no legal expectation of privacy in public. There is nothing remotely creepy about this. In fact I actually think this is a fairly clever use of the technology which allows people to easily opt out if desired.
And, it's not like you can opt out.. unless you simply don't fly.
There is an incredibly easy solution. Turn off your Wifi. Tada! Problem solved. If you have Wifi turned on then you are quite literally broadcasting your presence to anyone who cares to listen. It's like shouting at the top of your lungs in the airport and then telling everyone you have no way to opt out. YOU are the one broadcasting. It is YOUR choice. If you don't want people to listen then turn off your radio.
In addition most companies introduced ISO 9001 in the hopes to improve product and service quality.
Most companies introduced ISO9000 (and similar) because their customers required them to do so. If you are in the supply chain for automotive and want to do business with Ford or its suppliers you will be required to be ISO9000 (or TS16949) registered. Same thing with aerospace and the AS equivalent standards. Some take it seriously and use the quality system as intended but plenty of them just regard it as a pointless bureaucratic hurdle to be circumvented whenever possible.
What most missed is the simple fact that you need to do something with all the data you collected and actually improve the production process.
I don't think they missed that. I think most don't really care because that takes work and costs money. They get the registration so that they can continue to do business and they do just enough work to get that done but no more. There are all sorts of conflicts of interest too. For instance the company getting the ISO registration gets to pick the auditor. If the auditor gets too tough on them the company can (and will) hire a different one. Thus the auditors have little incentive to rock the boat so that they will get paid and the company being audited has every incentive to pick an auditor who will not dig too deeply.
All because he sold questionably valuable software company in the Internet dotcom boom.
There is no question. Paypal is quite valuable - worth billions of dollars. Whether you personally like the product is of no consequence or relevance.
The rest gets easier when you have millions in capital.
Easier != Easy. There are plenty of people with the sort of capital Elon Musk has and damn few of them have accomplished anywhere close to as much. Few have even started one company as successful as Paypal, Tesla or SpaceX much less three.
I mind Slashdot's endless fellating of him more than I mind him.
Then go somewhere else and take your condescension with you. Nobody is forcing you to be here.
They get all that done AND do all the technical documentation crap that other people pretend makes their components so expensive.
That's really not that big a deal. Being AS9100 or ISO9000 registered basically involves documenting the stuff you already have to do anyway in order to run your organization well and then actually doing what you document. It's really not all that big a deal. It doesn't mean you produce a good or bad product - it simply means you say what you do and do what you say. Pretty much any company that wants to do business in aerospace is AS9100 certified just like almost every company that works in automotive is ISO9000 (or equivalent) registered.
Anyone who claims that ISO9000 means they produce a good product is either lying or doesn't understand what ISO9000 means. Same with any of the other quality standards.
Yet another Musk fantasy with no hope of becoming reality. Wake me when he DOES something, rather than pie-in-the-sky fantasy.
What have you done that is so spectacular? Go ahead and dazzle us.
Elon Musk has founded several very influential companies, turning those industries upside down in the process. You actually think starting Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX is not impressive? If that doesn't impress you then you plainly don't understand what all that means. You don't have to like the guy but he's certainly earned a measure of respect for his accomplishments.
Anyone with enough money and willingness to throw that money at a "problem" will be able to compete.
Just because you throw lots of money at a problem doesn't mean you'll ever make a profit. If you cannot make a profit you will eventually go out of business. A bottomless (or effectively so) checkbook isn't necessarily enough. For example Microsoft may never make back all the money they invested in trying to make the Xbox competitive. Sure they "competed" but it was a Pyrrhic victory at best.
So, other than some moronic social experiment of "information wants to be free so if you see what's in my fridge what's the harm"... what the hell would I want one for? What benefit does it give me?
A good question. I've heard a few answers that make some sense, mostly revolving around service and maintentance. I leave it as an exercise to you to determine whether these uses are actually of any value.
1) An internet connected device can notify maintenance services in the event of equipment failure automatically. You could have a service contract whereby the "health" of the machine is monitored by qualified service companies and service scheduled as needed possibly even before failure.
2) It would allow data gathering for manufacturers regarding operating conditions and usage to help improve designs and optimize performance in real time. Perhaps manufacturers could offer an improved warranty in exchange for such monitoring capabilities.
3) Some devices like refrigerators may integrate displays on the door and any time there is a screen there are potential applications for internet connectivity. For example if you use an online grocery service (like Amazon's) you could reorder milk or other items directly from the fridge the moment you realize you need them. You could also display movies or stream music through the fridge for entertainment while working in the kitchen.
4) Monitoring your stove to actually make sure you turned it off. (No I wouldn't allow it to be turned on remotely - just off)
I'm sure there are more. You have to think a little harder about how and why such a thing might be helpful. To make use of internet connectivity you have to completely re-evaluate how you use the device and what features might work well with it. No you probably aren't going to hook your toaster up to the internet but there are actual applications that make sense for some people in certain circumstances.
According to Nielsen the average person watches: 4 hours and 35 minutes of TV a day.
I *might* watch that much in a week. There just isn't that much worth watching most of the time. I guess I'm an outlier. I cannot fathom why anyone would give a crap about the latest Kardashian family hijinks.
What's really sad is people don't insist on ad free TV, or a 3rd party candidate...
That costs money. Watching advertising just costs time. If you have a lot of money you can trade money for time. If you don't have a lot of money you trade time for money. Simple fact is that most people either can not and/or will not pay what TV would cost if it were not ad supported. Furthermore it's unlikely to ever really be offered because there is too much money to be made with advertising.
People don't support third party candidates because the deck has been stacked by the two major parties to make it almost impossible for any third party candidate to get elected.
Look, I don't like Microsoft any more than most people here but that's just nonsense. You can grind you ax against Microsoft in plenty of ways that don't require making stuff up. It's not like there isn't anything legitimate to criticize about Windows. Your "evidence" that Windows is fragmented involves versions of Windows that were released over 10 years apart. That's not fragmentation - that's just normal development. The fact that Microsoft sells several versions that release different features depending on your license code isn't fragmentation - that's just price discrimination. Microsoft only sells a relatively small number of versions at any given time - FAR less than the number of Android versions available for sale.
There are dozens if not hundreds of companies selling highly customized versions of Android. Want to upgrade to Google's latest code? On most devices you are out of luck unless you want to go to the hassle of jailbreaking. There are even info graphics detailing Android's problems with a horde of different versions and makers.
Every section of road I've ever seen that has stop lights also has speed limits much less than 60 mph.
You need to get out more. I have stoplights on the road I live on where the speed limit is 50mph and there are plenty of rural highways with stoplights and speed limits of 60mph. They're not even remotely hard to find. My daily commute has 10 miles of travel with speed limits of (mostly) 55mph and traffic signals at every major intersection.
well, we could always ask someone who knows. How about the patent holders for Nylon?
That is one synthetic and quite likely not the most appropriate one. There are plenty of plastics with significantly lower glass transition temperatures. I don't know enough about them personally (I'm not a chemist) to know which might be appropriate for a rifle stock but I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a suitable material out there. HDPE maybe? Nylon is used a lot in higher temperature applications so it might not be the right choice for cold.
If you are going into extreme environments (cold, hot, vacuum, underwater, etc) you are very likely going to need different materials than you do for every day use in what we consider normal conditions. If I'm going to be dealing with temperatures of -40C then one should fully expect to need specialty gear and that obviously could include a rifle stock. I remain unconvinced that there is no synthetic material that would be suitable for a rifle stock in very cold weather.
Jobs used to do yearly hardware updates of iDevices with at least one big new feature. Retina displays, Siri, that sort of thing. Apple seems to have stopped doing that now, unless maybe you count the rather underwhelming fingerprint scanner.
Technology released since Steve Jobs died include but isn't limited to: ApplePay, Lighting cables, the iPad Mini, Touch ID (which is NOT underwhelming), larger screens, IOS7 and IOS8, Mavericks, Yosemite, AppleWatch, Healthkit, Homekit, Continuity, 2nd Gen Mac Pro, iCloud, 64 bit Aseries processors, iTunes Match, Family Sharing, and probably more I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. Plus of course various and numerous incremental improvements to their existing product lines.
Now some of these were in development while Steve was still alive but pretending that Apple hasn't done anything since he died is willfully ignoring the facts. Is it enough? Time will tell. But the notion that Apple stopped innovating the moment they threw the first shovel of dirt on Steve Jobs is absurd.
NFC and health apps are a good example of what they do now. Features that have been around for a few years, playing catch-up. I
And yet NFC is barely used and health apps remain poorly integrated with existing technology. I haven't yet seen a single person use a phone for NFC payments in person. I know some do here and there but it's hardly commonplace. Same with phone based health apps that aren't on iPhones. Some people use Fitbits etc but they don't integrate well and the ones that do integrate don't do so any better to Android than to iOS. Health monitoring devices and apps are in their infancy and NOBODY has really cracked that market - not Apple or anyone else.
In fact NFC is kind of a joke because you can only use it for payment, meaning a clunky Bluetooth interface is the only way to transfer small amounts of data between devices and you can't use NFC tags.
I have no idea what you are talking about here. NFC has nothing to do with Bluetooth and is used for different purposes. Saying NFC is only used for payments is hardly damning. That is a huge deal. The company that cracks contactless payments with smartphones is very likely to rake in a ton of money. Apple's new ApplePay service has as good a shot at it as anything I've seen. We'll see if it pans out in due time of course.
Slashdot Mirror
In describing my church, you also describe Slashdot.
Really? I've been reading and posting to slashdot a long time and there is almost nothing that readers here agree on much less consider dogma. Some are libertarian and others aren't and they have a healthy active debate about which is right. Some like Apple and other do not. Some like bitcoin and others think it is nonsense. When people on slashdot see a "Crazy Ms Doddard" they point it out with enthusiasm. Honestly I cannot think of many places that are less like a congregation that sits quietly trying to avoid conflict. The ENTIRE point and value of slashdot is that people here question virtually everything and argue loudly about it.
Find me a mainstream church where there are ongoing debates like the ones here about the correctness of virtually every topic and I'll concede the point.
I think it's more along the lines of the "watchmaker God," who set up all the mechanisms to produce the results he wanted, then set them in motion and sat back and watched.
A distinction without any real difference. Such an argument presumes the existence of a deity when in fact there is no actual reason to presume such an entity actually is responsible. They are exploiting a gap in our scientific knowledge to claim that a god is responsible for the universe. Over time science has pushed back the boundaries of our knowledge but the churches continue to insist that a supernatural being must be involved somehow in spite of there being no actual evidence to support their position. The church has to varying degrees and at various times actively fought a losing battle against scientific progress when it demonstrated church doctrine/dogma to be false. Periodically they acquiesce to logic and facts and declare that their god must be responsible for the bits we don't understand just yet or that god must have set things up. You don't need to get into a semantic argument to realize the logic is identical to god of the gaps.
Can you explain why God creating the mechanism of evolution (as opposed to the development of certain features and/or species) is a riff on the God of the gaps, in which it is posited that the cause for anything we can't yet explain is God's will?
It's just the most fundamental god of the gaps argument. Basically any time we don't understand something and then invoke a deity to explain it we are involving the same logic as a god of the gaps argument. It is an attempt to posit that god (in whatever form) exists and/or is responsible for something based on current gaps in our knowledge. No, we don't know how the universe was created but it doesn't automatically follow that a deity is responsible.
Miracles aren't magic, they are occurrences with incredibly low probabilities
A miracle by definition is an event that cannot be explained by natural or scientific laws. In other words an actual Act of God. It is used colloquially for unlikely events but that is not what a miracle actually is defined as.
The bible doesn't contradict science, although many religious people unfortunately do.
Really? People really did turn into pillars of salt? People can actually die for several days and then be reborn? Virgin's can actually give birth?
he said what the Church has said for some time now: if evolution does exist, it exists God created it.
Which is basically a riff on the god of the gaps argument.
...the Catholic Church itself has not had a conflict with scientific theory for some time now.
Really? That is not consistent with the evidence as far as I can tell. They've made concessions over time (see god of the gaps) but they still insist that their ethical stance should determine the course of scientific inquiry. The most prominent examples (though hardly the only ones) are in reproductive biology. The church officially opposes the use of embryonic stem cells. Church leaders advocate public health policies (like abstinence) that demonstrably do not work in spite of copious scientific evidence showing that they do not work. In 2009 the pope actually stated that condom use would make the AIDS crisis worse. The church rejects all use of contraception technology in spite of demonstrable benefits supported by scientific evidence.
Not because anyone disagrees with him, but because they all are thinking the same thing: "Oh, deal Lord, he's going to get crazy old Mrs. Doddard stated again on fossils again. How can I get out of here politely?"
Which means you are de-facto agreeing with "crazy old Mrs. Doddard" because you are remaining silent and accepting her viewpoint. I understand not wanting to get involved with an argument with a crazy person but quietly allowing her viewpoint to remain dogma because confrontation makes you uncomfortable is rather pathetic. Crazy Mrs. Doddard is permitted to inflict her nonsense on everyone else because it is allowed.
Modern churches, even here in the deep south are pretty diverse places, and the general policy seems to be "if you think this is going to start an argument, and is not vitally important, don't talk about it."
The technical term for that is groupthink. You are allowing irrational viewpoints without dissension because conflict makes you uncomfortable. Which makes me wonder why you bother going. Why would you repeatedly sit and listen to a bunch of stuff you claim you do not genuinely believe? The church is clearly claiming to tell you the "Truth". If you don't agree with it or if the available evidence doesn't support the claims, why would you repeatedly subject yourself to something you believe to be wrong?
Oh and I disagree that churches are particularly diverse places. Churches tend to be populated by very like minded people engaged in best example of groupthink I've ever seen.
I don't want ApplePay to win. That basically makes 1 Vendor control of the way we pay for things.
You mean except for cash, credit cards, debit cards, Google wallet, gift cards, money orders, checks, and even f***ing bitcoin? You mean except for the 3-4 companies that control most credit card activity already (Visa/MC, Amex, Discover, + a few others)?
Most people don't have a phone from Apple and that isn't likely to change anytime soon. I think you can relax...
At least with CurrentC it is a group of retailers all having to agree on a standard.
This "standard" might reasonably be an attempt at collusion given that it has lots of benefits to retailers and none to customers. Using an alternative "standard" whose sole purpose is to screw customers out of money, just because it isn't Apple is pretty dumb.
...so merchants still have to pay swipe fees to the bastards at Visa, MasterCard, et. al.
Technically true but the party that really is paying is you - the consumer. The swipe fees are baked into the price charged by the retailers so they are simply passing on the cost of the swipe fees. Any retailer who claims that swipe fees are costing them a penny is either A) selling their goods below cost or B) being disingenuous about who is actually paying the credit card companies.
With a few very minor exceptions most merchants only should care about credit card swipe fees if they can somehow lower then to an amount cheaper than their competition pays. If two retailers are charged the same 4% markup on the credit card swipe then it doesn't matter at all because they gain no advantage and they pass on basically all of the cost to the customer. In technical terms the payment incidence is almost always on the customer.
You understand why you get cash back though right? You get cash back because Visa/MC are charging so much extra they can afford kickbacks to the user.
I pay the markup either way. The merchant doesn't (usually) give me a discount if I don't use a credit card and all the fees are baked into the prices of the products.
If anything, I would expect more lucrative rewards programs because they're cutting out that middleman entirely.
No they aren't. They are just changing who the middle man is and saving money for themselves by cutting out things like convenience, security and liability. This payment service provides me all the problems of a debit card with less convenience, less security and less protection from fraud as far as I can tell. Why would I use this instead of a debit card much less instead of Apple Pay or Google's equivalent?
And every customer is pissed of in a major way, because both Apple Pay and Google Wallet actually _worked_ until these idiots shut it off.
Pissed might be too strong a word but I have a Walgreens right down the street from the CVS and Rite-Aid. Only one supports Apple Pay so guess which one I'm going to use if I want to use Apple Pay? (or Google's alternatives) I'm certainly not going to do business with someone who makes my life less convenient. This CurrentC "solution" is all benefit to the merchant and none to me. I can't see a single redeeming benefit to me. Less convenient, more risk and seemingly limited liability protection? No thanks.
Apple has some pretty convincing material out describing how Apple Pay works, that can convince the geeks that it is actually safe. Google probably has the same thing, would be nice if someone could post a link. But these jokers? I wouldn't trust them in a million years.
Dead on. Retailers have clearly shown they cannot be trusted to keep customer data secure. It's bad enough with a credit card. There is no way in hell I'm giving any major retailer direct (ACH) access to my bank account. They must be doing some heavy drugs if they think I am dumb enough to do that.
The retailers can build CurrentC but they can't force customers to use it. The payment process sounds terrible; it'll be easier to just pull out your credit card and pay with that.
Agreed. It's like using a debit card but more cumbersome and with less legal protection. All the benefits are for the merchant and none for the consumer.
So let me get this straight. They have a solution that is harder to use, less secure, and requires me to give direct access to my bank account? Why is this any better than using a debit card? They're delusional if they think this is a good solution.
The retailers have joined together to create a platform that is independent of the credit card companies and their profit-robbing transaction fees.
Credit card transaction fees get passed on to customers. They generally do not eat that cost. The incidence of payment is entirely on the end customer. This argument is bogus. I don't mind them saving me as the end customer money but it isn't their pocket it comes out of.
However, the argument that when you're out in public you don't deserve any privacy needs to die. The law in most places may not have kept up with technology and its implications
It's not that you have no privacy in public but rather that your expectations of privacy are (and should be) rather limited. You might be noticed or you might not be but you should have no objective legal expectation that your actions will go unnoticed by anyone. As a general practical matter is is basically impossible to provide you with the sort of privacy you might expect in your home when out in public. There are legitimate public safety concerns as well as practical considerations. Are we supposed to avert our eyes because you walked by so that you can pretend you went unnoticed?
When someone spies on me electronically, that spy doesn't actually know whether I'm in public or not.
Explain how the airport does not know you are in public when you are standing in a security line and broadcasting a radio signal.
Airports have lots of rooms where I could be that are not public.
You are confusing seclusion with the legal concept of privacy. They are not the same thing. The airport is not private property owned by you. Generally speaking you have no objective expectation of privacy anywhere on the airport grounds so long as your Fourth Amendment rights to unreasonable search and seizure are not violated. It does not matter if you are alone in a room or standing in a public area.
I can't see any justification why the fact that people can see me would mean that people can electronically spy on me.
Nobody is spying on you. You are BROADCASTING your presence. Get a clue. If it bothers you then turn your radio off and it won't be a problem for you.
No, the privacy implications of this are downright creepy. Because the most unsettling thing is governments and corporations feel they have a right to this information.
If you are in an airport your are IN PUBLIC. Your privacy rights are significantly reduced when you are in public. You have no legal expectation of privacy in public. There is nothing remotely creepy about this. In fact I actually think this is a fairly clever use of the technology which allows people to easily opt out if desired.
And, it's not like you can opt out .. unless you simply don't fly.
There is an incredibly easy solution. Turn off your Wifi. Tada! Problem solved. If you have Wifi turned on then you are quite literally broadcasting your presence to anyone who cares to listen. It's like shouting at the top of your lungs in the airport and then telling everyone you have no way to opt out. YOU are the one broadcasting. It is YOUR choice. If you don't want people to listen then turn off your radio.
In addition most companies introduced ISO 9001 in the hopes to improve product and service quality.
Most companies introduced ISO9000 (and similar) because their customers required them to do so. If you are in the supply chain for automotive and want to do business with Ford or its suppliers you will be required to be ISO9000 (or TS16949) registered. Same thing with aerospace and the AS equivalent standards. Some take it seriously and use the quality system as intended but plenty of them just regard it as a pointless bureaucratic hurdle to be circumvented whenever possible.
What most missed is the simple fact that you need to do something with all the data you collected and actually improve the production process.
I don't think they missed that. I think most don't really care because that takes work and costs money. They get the registration so that they can continue to do business and they do just enough work to get that done but no more. There are all sorts of conflicts of interest too. For instance the company getting the ISO registration gets to pick the auditor. If the auditor gets too tough on them the company can (and will) hire a different one. Thus the auditors have little incentive to rock the boat so that they will get paid and the company being audited has every incentive to pick an auditor who will not dig too deeply.
All because he sold questionably valuable software company in the Internet dotcom boom.
There is no question. Paypal is quite valuable - worth billions of dollars. Whether you personally like the product is of no consequence or relevance.
The rest gets easier when you have millions in capital.
Easier != Easy. There are plenty of people with the sort of capital Elon Musk has and damn few of them have accomplished anywhere close to as much. Few have even started one company as successful as Paypal, Tesla or SpaceX much less three.
I mind Slashdot's endless fellating of him more than I mind him.
Then go somewhere else and take your condescension with you. Nobody is forcing you to be here.
They get all that done AND do all the technical documentation crap that other people pretend makes their components so expensive.
That's really not that big a deal. Being AS9100 or ISO9000 registered basically involves documenting the stuff you already have to do anyway in order to run your organization well and then actually doing what you document. It's really not all that big a deal. It doesn't mean you produce a good or bad product - it simply means you say what you do and do what you say. Pretty much any company that wants to do business in aerospace is AS9100 certified just like almost every company that works in automotive is ISO9000 (or equivalent) registered.
Anyone who claims that ISO9000 means they produce a good product is either lying or doesn't understand what ISO9000 means. Same with any of the other quality standards.
Yet another Musk fantasy with no hope of becoming reality. Wake me when he DOES something, rather than pie-in-the-sky fantasy.
What have you done that is so spectacular? Go ahead and dazzle us.
Elon Musk has founded several very influential companies, turning those industries upside down in the process. You actually think starting Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX is not impressive? If that doesn't impress you then you plainly don't understand what all that means. You don't have to like the guy but he's certainly earned a measure of respect for his accomplishments.
Anyone with enough money and willingness to throw that money at a "problem" will be able to compete.
Just because you throw lots of money at a problem doesn't mean you'll ever make a profit. If you cannot make a profit you will eventually go out of business. A bottomless (or effectively so) checkbook isn't necessarily enough. For example Microsoft may never make back all the money they invested in trying to make the Xbox competitive. Sure they "competed" but it was a Pyrrhic victory at best.
So, other than some moronic social experiment of "information wants to be free so if you see what's in my fridge what's the harm" ... what the hell would I want one for? What benefit does it give me?
A good question. I've heard a few answers that make some sense, mostly revolving around service and maintentance. I leave it as an exercise to you to determine whether these uses are actually of any value.
1) An internet connected device can notify maintenance services in the event of equipment failure automatically. You could have a service contract whereby the "health" of the machine is monitored by qualified service companies and service scheduled as needed possibly even before failure.
2) It would allow data gathering for manufacturers regarding operating conditions and usage to help improve designs and optimize performance in real time. Perhaps manufacturers could offer an improved warranty in exchange for such monitoring capabilities.
3) Some devices like refrigerators may integrate displays on the door and any time there is a screen there are potential applications for internet connectivity. For example if you use an online grocery service (like Amazon's) you could reorder milk or other items directly from the fridge the moment you realize you need them. You could also display movies or stream music through the fridge for entertainment while working in the kitchen.
4) Monitoring your stove to actually make sure you turned it off. (No I wouldn't allow it to be turned on remotely - just off)
I'm sure there are more. You have to think a little harder about how and why such a thing might be helpful. To make use of internet connectivity you have to completely re-evaluate how you use the device and what features might work well with it. No you probably aren't going to hook your toaster up to the internet but there are actual applications that make sense for some people in certain circumstances.
According to Nielsen the average person watches: 4 hours and 35 minutes of TV a day.
I *might* watch that much in a week. There just isn't that much worth watching most of the time. I guess I'm an outlier. I cannot fathom why anyone would give a crap about the latest Kardashian family hijinks.
What's really sad is people don't insist on ad free TV, or a 3rd party candidate...
That costs money. Watching advertising just costs time. If you have a lot of money you can trade money for time. If you don't have a lot of money you trade time for money. Simple fact is that most people either can not and/or will not pay what TV would cost if it were not ad supported. Furthermore it's unlikely to ever really be offered because there is too much money to be made with advertising.
People don't support third party candidates because the deck has been stacked by the two major parties to make it almost impossible for any third party candidate to get elected.
Windows is at least as fragmented as Android.
Look, I don't like Microsoft any more than most people here but that's just nonsense. You can grind you ax against Microsoft in plenty of ways that don't require making stuff up. It's not like there isn't anything legitimate to criticize about Windows. Your "evidence" that Windows is fragmented involves versions of Windows that were released over 10 years apart. That's not fragmentation - that's just normal development. The fact that Microsoft sells several versions that release different features depending on your license code isn't fragmentation - that's just price discrimination. Microsoft only sells a relatively small number of versions at any given time - FAR less than the number of Android versions available for sale.
There are dozens if not hundreds of companies selling highly customized versions of Android. Want to upgrade to Google's latest code? On most devices you are out of luck unless you want to go to the hassle of jailbreaking. There are even info graphics detailing Android's problems with a horde of different versions and makers.
Every section of road I've ever seen that has stop lights also has speed limits much less than 60 mph.
You need to get out more. I have stoplights on the road I live on where the speed limit is 50mph and there are plenty of rural highways with stoplights and speed limits of 60mph. They're not even remotely hard to find. My daily commute has 10 miles of travel with speed limits of (mostly) 55mph and traffic signals at every major intersection.
well, we could always ask someone who knows. How about the patent holders for Nylon?
That is one synthetic and quite likely not the most appropriate one. There are plenty of plastics with significantly lower glass transition temperatures. I don't know enough about them personally (I'm not a chemist) to know which might be appropriate for a rifle stock but I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a suitable material out there. HDPE maybe? Nylon is used a lot in higher temperature applications so it might not be the right choice for cold.
If you are going into extreme environments (cold, hot, vacuum, underwater, etc) you are very likely going to need different materials than you do for every day use in what we consider normal conditions. If I'm going to be dealing with temperatures of -40C then one should fully expect to need specialty gear and that obviously could include a rifle stock. I remain unconvinced that there is no synthetic material that would be suitable for a rifle stock in very cold weather.
Jobs used to do yearly hardware updates of iDevices with at least one big new feature. Retina displays, Siri, that sort of thing. Apple seems to have stopped doing that now, unless maybe you count the rather underwhelming fingerprint scanner.
Technology released since Steve Jobs died include but isn't limited to: ApplePay, Lighting cables, the iPad Mini, Touch ID (which is NOT underwhelming), larger screens, IOS7 and IOS8, Mavericks, Yosemite, AppleWatch, Healthkit, Homekit, Continuity, 2nd Gen Mac Pro, iCloud, 64 bit Aseries processors, iTunes Match, Family Sharing, and probably more I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. Plus of course various and numerous incremental improvements to their existing product lines.
Now some of these were in development while Steve was still alive but pretending that Apple hasn't done anything since he died is willfully ignoring the facts. Is it enough? Time will tell. But the notion that Apple stopped innovating the moment they threw the first shovel of dirt on Steve Jobs is absurd.
NFC and health apps are a good example of what they do now. Features that have been around for a few years, playing catch-up. I
And yet NFC is barely used and health apps remain poorly integrated with existing technology. I haven't yet seen a single person use a phone for NFC payments in person. I know some do here and there but it's hardly commonplace. Same with phone based health apps that aren't on iPhones. Some people use Fitbits etc but they don't integrate well and the ones that do integrate don't do so any better to Android than to iOS. Health monitoring devices and apps are in their infancy and NOBODY has really cracked that market - not Apple or anyone else.
In fact NFC is kind of a joke because you can only use it for payment, meaning a clunky Bluetooth interface is the only way to transfer small amounts of data between devices and you can't use NFC tags.
I have no idea what you are talking about here. NFC has nothing to do with Bluetooth and is used for different purposes. Saying NFC is only used for payments is hardly damning. That is a huge deal. The company that cracks contactless payments with smartphones is very likely to rake in a ton of money. Apple's new ApplePay service has as good a shot at it as anything I've seen. We'll see if it pans out in due time of course.